I’m fucking tired of explaining to business ghouls that I AM FUCKING DESPERATE. I’M INTERVIEWING WITH YOU BECAUSE I WANT TO SURVIVE. I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT MY DREAMS OR WHETHER THIS JOB OR YOUR COMPANY LINES UP WITH MY CAREER GOALS. WE ARE HOLY-SHIT PAST THE POINT WHERE I’M ABLE TO BE CHOOSY. ALL YOU FUCKING NEED TO DO IS READ THE FUCKING RESUMÉ THAT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR GOD-DAMNED EYES, ASK ABOUT MY QUALIFICATIONS, AND TELL ME WHETHER OR NOT I’M A GOOD FIT.
NO, your company isn’t special to me, and it isn’t special to ANYONE but you and your business-ghoul friends. Your company is merely the LABEL that will decorate my paycheck and LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE, AND I’M SICK OF PRETENDING OTHERWISE.
And WHY the FUCK are you calling me to literally REPEAT SHIT YOU’RE TOO FUCKING IGNORANT TO READ ON THE GOD-DAMNED FUCKING RESUMÉ?
I’ve applied for at least 200 engineering jobs (I recounted the ones on job sites; but even that’s nowhere near all of them) this year and gotten zero offers. This job search is LITERALLY DRIVING ME INSANE, because I can no longer fucking afford antidepressants and I’m on the verge of blowing up in people’s faces all the goddamn fucking time. I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE.
Try [insert nearby industry here]
Funny story: turns out, there are people who studied for degrees in those nearby industries. No I can’t land a software developer, data scientist, IT, etc., job, because (1) I’ve applied for all those several times and not even gotten an interview and (2) my school produces students who actually studied those topics as a major!
So thank you genuinely to the dozens of people who have recommended that, I really do appreciate the help … but that only works if you’re an appealing candidate in general.
Why are you unhirable?
Bad GPA (~2.8; many firms have hard cutoff > 3 or 3.1), no experience/internships, no support/professional network, recent downward trajectory on transcript, autistic, mentally ill getting more unstable by the day, terrible attitude that’s impossible to fully hide, no charisma to accommodate for my deficiencies, no access to a time machine. I KNOW how I got here, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
At least when I worked in food delivery I managed to make non-trivial money. AT LEAST I WAS HAPPY while being exploited. Now I’m thousands of dollars in debt, literally a hundred pounds heavier, psychologically and emotionally BROKEN, and no closer to getting a real job than I was before.
Being unemployed after school was a dark time. There aren’t enough high quality jobs to go around. It’s competitive, especially at the start of your career.
That GPA is tough. Mine isn’t much better. One option I’m looking at is going back to increase my cGPA so I can get into a grad program. I wish I could go way back in time. But if I could only go back to where you are right now I’d do what I needed to do to get into grad school. Caveat: something employable.
My experience after finally getting the damn job is that I still feel trapped, years later. I took the first one that was offered to me, and it’s not the one I wanted. I’m part way through a career I don’t like and shifting gears in your 30s is another challenge I wish I could have side stepped.
The bullshit doesn’t stop. The business environment is a political environment. You can be the best engineer, but if you aren’t constantly pushing your own agenda or you don’t have an excellent manager then you won’t advance in your career, not compared to one who does those things.
One other thing: you might not need to lie. I’m a truthful person as well, and if you have autism you might default even more strongly to honesty. I think it’s possible to work around this if you start thinking about yourself as being a better person than you are, and then trying to become that person one small step at a time. If you can learn to recognize your potential instead of counting your failures then you might find it easier to talk and think about yourself in a more positive way. It will feel true because it is true, (even if you’re still working on it).
It’s a very hard time.
So I actually did get unconditionally admitted to a graduate program, i.e. I do have the GPA for that at my alma mater. Actually, I got admitted to an online program, e.g. no fucking commute, so I can do a lot better than before. Actually, if money was not an issue, I would immediately go do a master’s degree. I’m strongly considering it, but (1) it’s going to double my current student debt and (2) I have no reason to suggest that I won’t be in a similar trap when I graduate with a master’s degree. Additionally, my parents have indicated that they will continue charging $600/month for rent, so I basically need to get paid work of any kind ASAP even if I do go for a graduate degree. (Financial aid never fully covered rent even when I lived on campus; I relied on help from my parents. My alma mater is a state school, one of the “affordable” options.)
My bachelor’s degree is in electrical engineering, and my master’s degree would be the same. Now if you asked me four years ago how employable my degree was, I would have told you that I could get a job anywhere, anytime, just as everyone had assured me. And that’s what people keep telling me… But I somehow don’t believe them… I could use a couple more years to get some internship/co-op/project experience and drop 100 pounds, but I don’t have the money and I probably won’t have the support of my parents.
I’ve reached the “apply for anything” phase and the crazy thing is that they won’t even let me interview for positions that aren’t my dream job. Literally just lost an interview after I was tricked into admitting that the nature of jobs the company had to offer weren’t a good fit, even though the industry and my coursework otherwise matched with the job. This isn’t even the first or second opportunity I’ve lost because the interviewer sussed out the fact that it wasn’t my literal dream job. Last time it was after two video calls, a phone call, and a technical exam. Like it seems like you are required to pre-love your job.
That’s rough. I’m in my late 20s though, so I’m not spring chicken either!
Turns out the only employable degree was CS!
Student loans would put a damper on my plans as well. I’m thinking of vocational programs. Nurse, police officer, pilot, therapist, cybersecurity engineer. I was an Emergency Medical Responder briefly after undergrad when I felt so lost. From zero to card carrying level 1 medic took about 2-3 months and maybe $2-3k. I worked in industry making about $250 a day, contract work. Boring AF. That kind of thing is on the table, but obviously a big departure from what you are headed right now.